I inherited a bunch of grape vines last year. I know nothing about grapes,
but have tried to learn about pruning from the internet.

Our plants have thick wood at the base; I don't know how old they are, but
the trunks are about two inches across; maybe about five inches in diameter.

I tried pruning them yesterday, and discovered that the trucks go a
LOOONNNNG way before sending out canes. Some of the trunks are bent and
curled, often sending out canes as much as three feet from where the trunk
comes out of the ground. All the info I have seen assumes a short trunk
with canes coming out just a few inches above the ground, but on these
plants you have to travel quite a bit to get to new growth. I suspect the
plants were not trained well earlier, and the pruning took place farther and
farther from the base each year.

My question is, is there any way to sort of train these back to getting
growth closer to the base? It seems like there is a lot of wasted space
now, as the trunks go several feet out of the ground before any growth. The
trunks are heavy and lean on the wires. All websites I have looked at give
instructions for pruning based on a plant that has been trained well to grow
from the base. I can't seem to find any info on pruning grapes that have
such long trunks.

Any information or web sites would be greatly appreciated.
--Suzanne

Suzanne D. wrote:

I inherited a bunch of grape vines last year. I know nothing about
grapes, but have tried to learn about pruning from the internet.

Our plants have thick wood at the base; I don't know how old they are, but
the trunks are about two inches across; maybe about five inches in
diameter.

I tried pruning them yesterday, and discovered that the trucks go a
LOOONNNNG way before sending out canes.

Probably due to improper pruning when they were young. Grape vines have
what is known as terminal dominance. The energy will go to the end of the
cordons first. If the cordons were too long initially, all the energy went
to the ends.

You could consider "Heading" the vines. This means severe pruning in which
you cut back to where the trunk, or more properly called Cordons, go from
vertical to horizontal on the wire. New shoots will grow from near the
head and you can train them to be your new cordons (horizontal portions of
the trunk). You will have very little or no fruit the first year after
this procedure. After the new cordons go dormant in the fall, prune them
back to about a foot or 18 inches in length and every year you can extend
them about 6 inches or so until you have the cordon length you want. After
dormancy, prune the canes growing from the new cordons to create two bud
spurs on the cordons. This is for cordon / spur pruning. If you decide to
go with cane pruning (which is slightly more difficult to learn how to do
properly) you can leave two canes about several feet in length. It is
important to know what variety of grape you have because some varieties
produce very well on cordon / spur pruning but a few varieties do not have
very fruitful buds for the first several buds and therefore you need to
cane prune the vine.

I highly recommend the book "From Vines to Wine" by Jeff Cox - even if you
are not growing the grapes for wine production. It is one of the best book
I have found on pruning and is very inexpensive. It has numerous line
drawings showing you how to prune from year to year.

Thanks very much for the information. I will look more into heading, and
will try to find out what types we have in order to prune them correctly in
the future.

One more question: a few of the plants have some suckers at the bottom.
Would it be okay to allow these to grow to eventually take the place of the
older plants, or should I eliminate these altogether?
--Suzanne


"Paul E. Lehmann" wrote in message
...
Suzanne D. wrote:

I inherited a bunch of grape vines last year. I know nothing about
grapes, but have tried to learn about pruning from the internet.

Our plants have thick wood at the base; I don't know how old they are,
but
the trunks are about two inches across; maybe about five inches in
diameter.

I tried pruning them yesterday, and discovered that the trucks go a
LOOONNNNG way before sending out canes.

Probably due to improper pruning when they were young. Grape vines have
what is known as terminal dominance. The energy will go to the end of the
cordons first. If the cordons were too long initially, all the energy
went
to the ends.

You could consider "Heading" the vines. This means severe pruning in
which
you cut back to where the trunk, or more properly called Cordons, go from
vertical to horizontal on the wire. New shoots will grow from near the
head and you can train them to be your new cordons (horizontal portions of
the trunk). You will have very little or no fruit the first year after
this procedure. After the new cordons go dormant in the fall, prune them
back to about a foot or 18 inches in length and every year you can extend
them about 6 inches or so until you have the cordon length you want.
After
dormancy, prune the canes growing from the new cordons to create two bud
spurs on the cordons. This is for cordon / spur pruning. If you decide to
go with cane pruning (which is slightly more difficult to learn how to do
properly) you can leave two canes about several feet in length. It is
important to know what variety of grape you have because some varieties
produce very well on cordon / spur pruning but a few varieties do not have
very fruitful buds for the first several buds and therefore you need to
cane prune the vine.

I highly recommend the book "From Vines to Wine" by Jeff Cox - even if you
are not growing the grapes for wine production. It is one of the best
book
I have found on pruning and is very inexpensive. It has numerous line
drawings showing you how to prune from year to year.

Suzanne D. wrote:

Thanks very much for the information. I will look more into heading, and
will try to find out what types we have in order to prune them correctly
in the future.

One more question: a few of the plants have some suckers at the bottom.
Would it be okay to allow these to grow to eventually take the place of
the older plants, or should I eliminate these altogether?
--Suzanne

This depends on whether the vine was planted from a graft on rootstock or
self rooted. If it was a grafted vine it depends where the suckers are
located. If it was a grafted vine make sure the sucker(s) is above the the
graft union otherwise you will be growing the root stock instead of what
you want.

Generally every year it is a good idea to allow a couple suckers to grow to
shoots in case you need to replace the trunk or cordon because of winter
kill or disease. If they are not needed, you can prune them off the
following year or prune back to one or two buds.

If you presently have a couple shoots near the head of the vine (where the
trunk goes horizontal to form the cordons), you could cut off your old
cordons and use the shoots for your new cordon. This would in effect be
cane pruning and the shoots would produce fruit. There is a LOT of energy
in the old trunk and roots. You will be surprised at how fast the vine
jumps back to vigor.

In article , says...
Thanks very much for the information. I will look more into heading, and
will try to find out what types we have in order to prune them correctly in
the future.

Most grape varieties do well with the "Four cane Kniffen" system, so be
sure to look up that one. But yes, check if it's suited to what you
have.

--
Homo sapiens is a goal, not a description

Larry Blanchard wrote:

In article , says...
Thanks very much for the information. I will look more into heading, and
will try to find out what types we have in order to prune them correctly
in the future.

Most grape varieties do well with the "Four cane Kniffen" system, so be
sure to look up that one. But yes, check if it's suited to what you
have.


In my opinion, probably the easiest "Trellising" system to establish is the
Vertical Shoot Positioning (VSP). But I am afraid we are branching into a
new subject area. There are only two "Pruning" methods 1) Cordon Spur and
2) Cane.

There are, however, many different "Trellising" systems that can be used for
each of these two basic pruning systems. This is one reason I recommend
the book by Cox. Besides doing a very good job of explaining the two basic
pruning methods, he does a good job explaining the various trellising
systems. In my 112 vine backyard vineyard, I use the "Lyre" trellising
system for part of it and the other part is VSP. For both systems I use
cordon-spur pruning.

Thanks to everyone for the info. I now know what topics to look into for
more information, now that I am headed in a more specific direction.
--S.


"Suzanne D." wrote in message
...
I inherited a bunch of grape vines last year. I know nothing about
grapes,
but have tried to learn about pruning from the internet.

Our plants have thick wood at the base; I don't know how old they are, but
the trunks are about two inches across; maybe about five inches in
diameter.

I tried pruning them yesterday, and discovered that the trucks go a
LOOONNNNG way before sending out canes. Some of the trunks are bent and
curled, often sending out canes as much as three feet from where the trunk
comes out of the ground. All the info I have seen assumes a short trunk
with canes coming out just a few inches above the ground, but on these
plants you have to travel quite a bit to get to new growth. I suspect the
plants were not trained well earlier, and the pruning took place farther
and
farther from the base each year.

My question is, is there any way to sort of train these back to getting
growth closer to the base? It seems like there is a lot of wasted space
now, as the trunks go several feet out of the ground before any growth.
The
trunks are heavy and lean on the wires. All websites I have looked at
give
instructions for pruning based on a plant that has been trained well to
grow
from the base. I can't seem to find any info on pruning grapes that have
such long trunks.

Any information or web sites would be greatly appreciated.
--Suzanne